Skip to main content
Police and the SAIF Corp. remain close-lipped about an early-morning shooting Feb. 21 at the home of the workers’ compensation insurer’s CEO Chip Terhune.
Nobody was injured in the shooting, which targeted Terhune’s Lake Oswego home at about 4 am Friday, as the Oregon Journalism Project previously reported.
Related: The CEO of SAIF, the State Workers’ Compensation Insurer, Says His Home Was Targeted by Gunfire
Over the weekend, however, Terhune sent an email to SAIF employees, who number just over 1,000.
“We have received an email threat purporting to be from the person(s) responsible,” Terhune wrote in a Feb. 22 email OJP has obtained. “Although it does not target any specific employee, the email references knowledge of employee and relatives' names and addresses.”
Terhune withheld further information about the email. “Law enforcement is working diligently to investigate this matter and asked that we not share any additional specific information about the actual email.”
Over the weekend, according to a neighbor, police canvassed streets near Terhune’s house, seeking home security camera footage of a masked person dressed in black that would have been taken early Friday morning.
The police officer “said there was not a public safety risk,” the neighbor tells OJP.
SAIF is Oregon’s largest workers' compensation insurance provider. Founded as a state agency, it became a public corporation in 1979, with headquarters in Salem. The governor still appoints the agency’s five board members, however, and they in turn appoint and supervise the CEO.
Terhune, who has led the agency since 2021, worked in a variety of high-level political and nonprofit jobs before joining SAIF. The shooting at his home—he described it in a closed neighborhood Facebook post as three shots through the glass of his front door—carries echoes of the December murder of a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York. As the state’s largest workers' compensation insurer, SAIF handles more than 40,000 claims annually and, of course, denies some of them—5,135 in 2023, according to SAIF.
Nobody has released any information about the shooter’s motive at this point. SAIF and Gov. Tina Kotek’s office have referred questions about the incident and pending investigation to the Lake Oswego Police Department, which has not responded to requests for comment. The Oregon State Police also referred questions to Lake Oswego police.
In his weekend message to employees, Terhune encouraged SAIF workers to be vigilant, particularly when visiting the agency’s six offices around the state. Those offices are open to the public and clients by appointment only, a SAIF spokeswoman says.
This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering rural Oregon. OJP seeks to inform, engage, and empower readers with investigative and watchdog reporting that makes an impact. Our stories appear in partner newspapers across the state.